This caught my eye:
"If we end the war in Iraq the way we ended the war in Afghanistan, we could easily be worse off than we are today."

True, it's in "journalistic context" (sorta like poetic licensing), but on its own shows a skewed view of the real world. The assumption it immediately demands is that Iraq is not run by a central government, but by powerful warlords scattered over a large region, and this is simply not the case. Knocking out the central figure would pretty much halt the country, and with far less damage inflicted than was found in Afghanistan -- much of which was a result of the Taliban government inflicting justice upon the local inhabitants.

Tight intelligence reports and precision bombing could see Iraq in better hands within a couple months, and the much-touted oil reserves, properly exploited, could easily get the nation back up on its feet, and into the World Market.

Dan